Sunday, August 26, 2007

Imagine Green Canvas!

Imagine a moment of abandon. Imagine inspiring your employees. Imagine taking in deep breaths of nature all day long. Imagine greater focus. Imagine welcoming your guests into a place of beauty filled with gardens of delight. Imagine giving life to a room, an atrium, a windowsill, corridors, or to an empty corner. Imagine giving your customers something to marvel over as they wait to come in. Imagine peeking around the corner and noticing a new bud opening. Imagine brightening your office with vibrant living color. Imagine a meditation corner, a fountain of soothing water and lush foliage plants. Imagine looking up from your task, to see a fluttering leaf. Imagine experiencing the outside while you are inside.

Green Canvas Interiorscape; The power of plants

The Green Canvas difference is our ability to transform spaces into creative and inspirational places to live and work. We specialize in rare, diverse and engaging plant arrangements. Our talent is to match a plants core essence with the spirit of the space. Our skilled care and presentation assures happy plants and satisfied clients.

Artistic plants are essential. They nourish and energize, creating a healthier and more productive environment. Plants clean the air of pollutants and greenhouse gases, and infuse it with oxygen. This is an active process that fosters balance, performance and positive attitudes.

Grow clean air.
Plants create a healthier environment to live and work. NASA studies prove that plants remove pollutants from the air, release oxygen and stabilize humidity in offices. Indoor air pollution is produced via gas emissions from humans and synthetic materials including floor and wall coverings, electronics and furniture and is a major contributor to "sick building syndrome". In a 1989 congressional report, the EPA studied ten energy efficient public buildings, finding 100 times greater than normal chemical concentrations. The EPA said "indoor air pollution represents a major portion of the public's exposure to air pollution and may pose serious acute and chronic health risk." Virtually all indoor plants are powerful removers of air pollutants, and suppress dust and molds in the environment. Providing plants in the workplace helps eliminate sick days, allergies, asthma, fatigue, headache, respiratory ailments and nervous system disorders.

Grow creativity and productivity.
Plants can be used to define and improve personal workspace, enhance office privacy and soften noise levels. This allows individuals to thrive within their space, and better focus on task at hand. Plants underscore the interconnectedness of life, while adding beauty and health! Creating a more natural and inspirational setting allows people to feel a sense of balance, enjoy their working environment, thus raising performance levels and reducing absenteeism.



Alan Kvasnik, owner
For over a decade Alan Kvasnik specialized in interiorscaping with unique plants. His technical skill grounds his creative use of movement, texture, color and perspective with artful arrangements of succulents, cacti, foliage and bonsai. Alan's insight and experience with plants is reflected in vibrant interiorscapes, transforming spaces into environments.

Alan Kvasnik; owner of Green Canvas discusses the process

What set you apart from other interiorscapers?
I am a plant-collecting enthusiast, I challenging myself by artfully presenting unusual plants that invigorate my clients spaces. I am committed to a pesticide free interiorscape. I've innovated a self-watering system.

What gives you inspiration and guidance as a bonsai/penjing plant is styled?
Each plant has a personality and a movement. Drawing upon my knowledge and what the plant tells me, I proceed with a goal of eliminating distractions and giving focus to the plants. Often by looking into a plant you can see more character, which helps me to choose what aspects to highlight. What sense of drama do I wish to convey? By staging the plant to look up into it gives a sense of perspective that I feel offers a glimpse into that plant's being.

How are plants selected for your clients space?
The organizations mission is primary. I believe that plants should compliment and strengthen their identity. I do a walk through and watch how people interact and use the space. I seek my client's input and learn what type of mood they would like to create and what they expect from their foliage. By using my palette of available plants I unify elements of space design, available lighting and my clients desired effects. I then present plant choices for an inspiring and stunning interiorscape.

What are your favorite plants?
Plants with movement and texture. Plants of surprising color, form or scent. To list a few; caudiciforms, bamboos, crested, monstrose and spiral cactus.


Where do you get your plants?
Nurseries and collectors throughout America.

Are your creations bonsai?
Bonsai simply means plant in a pot, evoking ancient trees or whimsical landscapes, I present a tree's unique beauty which loosely fits the traditional bonsai styles. Often my trees appear more wild or offbeat than traditional bonsai. Bonsaiesque is a word of my own creation that describes the styling, staging and potting of evocative trees. I am unconstrained by the rules of traditional bonsai, but integrate its ideas into my designs while guided by the tree.

Plantings of combined accent plants with a cohesive theme, meadows, deserts and streams are some of the paths I've pursued in my arrangements.

What is your philosophy of artistic pot plants?
My focus on indoor plantings has led me to interpret the aesthetics and horticulture of bonsai and penjing, and personally apply these concepts artfully to tree species beyond traditional evergreens and deciduous trees. I integrate my own design enhancements including ground covers and cohesive rock placement to create original and stunning tree designs. I do not use wire to bend my trees and I prune minimally for a more lush presentation. I also create artistic plant compositions using unusual plants other than trees including bamboo, cactus and succulents. Each planting has its own magical spirit that I am guided by as I compose a scape of wonder and focus. There is a concept in Japan of Wabi and Sabi that sums up the idea well. Wabi is a feeling of quiet, dignified simplicity associated with a place and Sabi is a feeling of simplicity and quietness associated with something old that is used over and over. A successful planting is a destination that draws you in, calms and reassures you and leaves you fuller.

Green Canvas Interiorscape; our creative techniques and more

My name is Alan Kvasnik and I've owned Green Canvas Interiorscape since 1991, we offer indoor plant leasing for businesses and homes in the Minneapolis area. Some of my plantings are unusually unusual and I will share my creative techniques for success here as well as other ideas and articles related to Interiorscaping creatively. Artistic Indoor Plantings is a term I use to describe my bonsai-esque creations. Plants used are always unique, often unplantlike and give the viewer pause to ponder. I look forward to sharing pictures and more. Until then enjoy our website www.greencanvasinteriorscape.com and check back!